2023-09-28 20:21:56
The Biden administration’s five-year plan for offshore oil and gas leasing will include no sales in 2024 and will feature the fewest number of auctions in the program’s history over the next four years, according to three sources familiar with the file.
The schedule for concessions in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska for the period 2024-2028 is due to be presented Friday, following several delays and months of battle between environmentalists and drilling advocates over what form the policy should take.
The final plan will mark a dramatic reduction from a proposal the Trump administration developed in 2018 that envisioned 47 lease sales, including in California and the Atlantic.
It will, however, fall short of U.S. President Joe Biden’s campaign promise to entirely end new federal drilling to combat climate change, following court rulings required continued leasing and the Environmental Reduction Act. Last year’s inflation made it a prerequisite for new offshore wind leases to be auctioned.
Joe Biden sees offshore wind power as a critical tool in his administration’s efforts to decarbonize the economy.
“The number of oil and gas concession sales will be the lowest in history and will enable the rapid expansion of the offshore wind industry,” one of the sources told Archyde.com.
The Ministry of the Interior is required by law to establish a national calendar of oil and gas concessions every five years. But it hasn’t had one since the previous one expired in June 2022, due to aggressive debate over the program.
The Biden administration unveiled a proposed plan in July of last year that envisioned between zero and eleven lease sales.
In recent years, politicians, environmentalists and the oil industry have presented the national leasing program as a symbol of the need to curb fossil fuel exploitation to avoid the worst effects of global warming, or as a tool essential for strengthening national energy reserves and keeping pump prices low.
The plan will be subject to a 60-day waiting period before being approved by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. (Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Nichola Groom, Editing by Chris Reese and Marguerita Choy)
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